The present disclosure relates generally to navigation technology, and more particularly to determining a location using street view images.
Navigation devices are widely used to help a user to arrive at a desired destination. A navigation device is generally equipped with a positioning module such as a Global Position System (GPS) module such that the navigation device may provide the user with a geographical location of the device. For example, the navigation device may be a mobile device such as mobile phone, tablet computer, a vehicle navigator, and so on. A navigation application, such as a map application, may run on the mobile device and provide the user with a graphical user interface (GUI) for navigation to the destination.
Street view images are actual photographs or still images captured at many geographical locations. Such images may provide the user with the ability to view a geographical location from a street view perspective. The street view images may be taken by, for example, a vehicle-mounted camera that captures images as the vehicle drives along a street. At each geographical location, multiple images corresponding to multiple direction angles may be taken to capture a panorama view. For example, a vehicle-mounted camera may utilize eight different lenses that capture eight different street view images at direction angle increments of 45 degrees from a specific geographical location.